Is Google PR Rank Really Important?

When looking to get authority backlinks to your web pages, it was always seen as an advantage to find high PR sites and pages to get links from. There is an argument that Google PR is no longer important. Is this true?

It was always the sign of authority when your website received a Page Rank value from Google. There has been no update of PR ranking for over 12 months, so many SEO’s are assuming that the PR function is dead. There are those, however, who say that it still has some value.

My thoughts are that it is still there, so there could be value to it. I don’t believe that it is as important as it once was, but it shouldn’t be dismissed to assess the authority that was put onto the web page that received the accolade of Google PR Rank.

How Do We Assess Authority Without PR?

How do we assess the authority of any web page to get valuable backlinks from that don’t appear “spammy” to the search engines. Links that are considered to be from “link farms” or the older pure link directories are likely to leave your site with a penalty, especially if you rely on this type of backlink.

Very often you can rank a web page WITHOUT a lot of links. If your link comes from a trusted and authoritative source, the “juice” you get from that site is from a page with good page authority.

There are 2 browser toolbars that are very helpful when you’re looking to get links from good sources in your niche. These are:

The top section of the image here shows the Mozbar, which comes from SEO moz. It shows the PA (page authority) and DA (Domain authority) of the web page in question. You can also get access to the Moz site explorer to assess the links into that particular page / site too.

The second is SEO Quake, which shows the PR of the page (not the website) so you can assess whether you think it’s worth getting a link from this source. Quake also offers you the chance to see the alexa rank of a page / site if this is something you take into consideration. Again, there are some who take this as a good thing, but it really depends on what you want from your own site. Alexa rank is based on traffic volume rather than the authority value. Whether Google and others take this into consideration around the content factors in their algorithms we can only guess.

The only thing I can say is that good content is better and traffic going to good content and getting social interaction is more valuable than anything else.

When looking to get links from any “authority” site, check the PA and DA and be sure they are above 25 on the whole. Above 20 is good for a “rule of thumb”. Also go to majestic.com and check out the Trust flow and Citation flow metrics for the domain in question, as shown below for a known authority site:

Sometimes the Moz result could be a good PA and DA, but the Majestic trust flow could be less than 10 and citation flow up on 30. What this means is some links are potentially questionable. If the site has TF of 15 or over and CF of 20 and they are reasonably close in value, that is a pretty good place to get a link from.

One of the best ways to ensure quality / authority links is to get links from your very own network of sites. This is called a Private Blog Network (PBN). Of course, Google has cottoned on to this and are aware it goes on, so there are sites that have been de indexed and have heavy penalties imposed if they are found out. You do have to be careful, but with the right education and the knowledge of setting up this valuable resource, you can benefit a lot from it.

Then there is a method of “borrowing authority”. This is a method that includes taking high authority WEB 2.0 domains like wordpress.com, blogger, Tumblr and more and creating your own network with sites from those sources. You can seek out expired accounts that have blogs that can have page authority of 25 and above. Put that alongside already high (in excess of 90 most of the time) domain authority and you could have a ready made “powerhouse”.

The search engines usually only count 1 link from any IP address to a web page (yes, a PAGE), but with the dawn of more social shares, this has led to more flexibility of that rule. This is why the “borrowed authority” method can work well.

Take advantage of getting bookmarks from high authority bookmark sites like delicious to each of your blog posts. A post is a page and the link WILL count on EVERY occasion. Because search engines rank web PAGES, this is something you need to know.

Conclusion:

Page rank does not hold the same importance as it used to. I believe it holds some merit because Google has not stopped showing the PR of a page. When looking for authority pages to interact with and get valuable links from, take the other PA, DA, TF and CF factors mentioned into consideration. Sometimes a PR0 site with good PA, DA etc metrics is better that a PR5 with poor metrics. One can only test and make sure.

If you are looking to improve your linking strategy and get more authority to your site. You can contact me on Facebook or by Email and I can offer you the opportunity of getting some juice from my own PBN and borrowed authority PBN networks.

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Thanks

Barrie.

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2 Responses

Hi barrie. this is kind of a relief to me, because i go crazy with stats. i am working on other ways of getting traffic to my site, and glad that page rank can just be part of the strategy. thanks so much for this information.